! ! Introduction To Advaita As Non-Duality Poem by Michael Shepherd

How many years after our birth
before we hear some word or phrase
that speaks of ‘unity’?

And then how many more,
before we hear such concepts
as ‘non-duality’ or ‘advaita’, as ‘not two’?

Yet something in us has now, tucked away,
the memory of that moment after birth
when that unbounded birthright, love in us

first sensed that same unbounded love
in the one who held us close;
murmured some strange words

whose meaning was all in their sound;
whose gaze – for did we know? –
met our unseeing gaze with touch;

that moment at the outset of this life
when we knew unity could not be two
and that its name is ever love.